The title of this post is a little misleading. About a year ago, I told a local advanced kettlebell training client about the 10k kettlebell swings challenge. She really liked the idea and we kicked it off in the park with a 600 swing Sunday Challenge workout… to get her ahead of the game in case the week had other plans for her – especially on a Monday. I sent her a sample spreadsheet to keep track of her kettlebell swings each day and in doing so created a monster. Not only did she complete 10k swings that first 30 days, she kept going – to 30k! At that point I was also heavily involved with a local group who was 3d printing face shield frames and needed to run out the last of a roll of filament here at home. So, I quickly designed and printed a little 30k swings trophy and shipped it to her (across town) as we were training via Zoom at the time. But as I said, I’d created a monster.
She KEPT GOING. So much so that it became “how many kettlebell swings can I complete in a year?” The answer, as of Sunday March 14th 2021, is: 80,000
It became 'How many kettlebell swings can I complete in a year?' The answer, as of Sunday March 14th 2021, is: 80,000 Share on XIs this necessarily advised? Not for all situations. This particular client has been training with me for a few years now and is in excellent athletic condition. She also needed an outlet during all this lockdown and uncertainty. My rules for this were – don’t chase the numbers (I think this got ignored), but make sure each rep is quality (thankfully this was heeded) no matter what. Also found out that this ended up being a nice substitute for some hard-on-the-joints jogging. Ok, fine. I’m good with that. Do YOU and I need to do 80,000 kettlebell swings? Probably not. And that’s OK! But she did, and this kept her going and highly motivated.
Don’t worry, we’re switching things up now.
BUT, here’s the Sunday Challenge workout from 3/14/2021 where we completed (in her front yard) those last 290 swings of her 80,000 kettlebell swings together. Of course I counted the last reps out loud – I’m sure the neighbors were confused, but hey, at least they can’t say they were bored for a minute.
It follows my pattern of “swings plus hand flattener” but because both of us had had an intense week (yet again) we opted to take our aggression out on some burpee variations — we both especially enjoy flinging a 25lb sandbag overhead for sandbag burpees. It doesn’t especially make sense but we both go “WHEEEEE!!!!” Of course you can always substitute standard pushups or any pushup variation between the swings instead – the goal is to give your grip a break – you can do that with any flat hand exercise – though I’d advise one that keeps you moving in an active rest fashion at the very least. (No napping.)
In case you can’t read my handwriting in the whiteboard image above, here it is typed out:
We started with our joint mobility sequence then….
5x Rounds of a very basic warmup circuit (to also make for an easier kettlebell swing count):
- 5x Goblet squats
- 10x Kettlebell swings
12x Rounds of the main circuit with the swings and burpee variations pattern*:
- 10x Kettlebell swings
- 2-3 Navy Seal Burpees
- 10x Kettlebell swings
- 3x Sandbag Burpees
3x Optional Mini Abs Circuit – for fun basically:
- 10x Crossreach Situps (she really likes these, so why not)
- 3x Ab Wheel
- 30 Seconds plank variation
Joint mobility cooldown sequence
*You could also do a 6x round version with sets of 20x kettlebell swings and 1 set of burpee variations etc. We wanted to do this in a fairly relaxed format, which is why I split it up into sets of 10 swings.
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